She aspired to be an artist, not a star. Ella, who grew up in a suburb of Auckland, was fronting the high school band at age 12 and devouring books. "Yeah, I had no friends and I read a ton of books," she laughed.

Her father is a civil engineer; her mother, a poet laureate.

"I remember being two and lying awake in my Mum's bed talking about our favorite fruits and why we love them," she laughed. "There's a lyric on the album where I say, 'I am my mother's child.' I don't think I was ever going to be anything but an artist because of my Mum!"

Sonia Yellich still accompanies her 20-year-old daughter on her travels. She's remarked that Ella's head is always on fire. "Oh, great!" Lorde laughed.

Is it true? "I don't know about on fire. It's definitely, there's such a current around me all the time.

"The way I go through the world and the way I see things, it's so, it's like in Technicolor. It's like magic to me and I feel like I have to get people to see what it is I'm seeing."

"You yourself have said this record in spots is a little weird," Mason said.

"It is kind of weird, yeah. I think about someone like David Bowie, and every record was such a pivot. And you know, you almost felt afraid of pressing play on a new record -- Am I gonna even understand this? And I think that throwing people into that sort of fear is, like, the most important thing you can do as an artist, long-term."

The day Mason joined Lorde, she was headed to a rehearsal studio, where she began by jumping online to release her latest single.

"It's all happening, Anthony! It's up on Twitter. So weird!"

She was rehearsing for her appearance at last weekend's Governor's Ball Festival.

Lorde performing at the Governor's Ball Festival on Randall's Island in New York City, on June 2, 2017.

CBS News

"Are you as happy on stage as you are in the studio?" Mason asked.

"I think I'm happiest in the studio. Stage is different because I get so nervous that it's like a weird trance," Lorde said. "When I'm on stage I feel myself go right to the edge of the cliff, so to speak. If I broke my arm on stage, I wouldn't know, I don't think, because you're just so dialed into this crazy environment."

After nearly four years away from that "crazy environment," with her album release, Lorde returns this week.

"Do you feel ready to be back, if you will?"

"I don't know if I'll ever feel ready -- 'being back' is that thing we talked about of not being a very good famous person? But no. I'm ready to be in conversation with the world again."